BC Partners sells SEK 2.25bn Com Hem stake

At SEK 91 per share, the partial exit will return around SEK 2.25bn to BC Partners, which reduces its stake in Com Hem to 18.3% as a result.

BC's fund netted a 2.2x money return on the shares sold in the transaction, which reaped a premium of around 60% on Com Hem's introductory IPO price of SEK 58 per share.

Prior to the sell-down, the GP owned a 30.7% stake in the business through its 2010-vintage €6.5bn BC European Capital IX fund.

The bookbuilding process was run by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

Editor's note: BC Partners is the owner of Mergermarket Group, the parent company of unquote".

Previous funding
According to unquote" data, BC Partners acquired Com Hem in a 2011 tertiary buyout from The Carlyle Group and Providence Equity Partners, valued at an estimated SEK 17bn.

Having acquired Com Hem in July, BC provided a €155m round of add-on funding in November 2011 to buy a €155m payment-in-kind bond at an implied yield of 15.5-16% from underwriters. A year later, Com Hem completed a €250m refinancing of the PIK note and its accrued interest, enabling it to repay a shareholder loan.

The company was floated on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm in June 2014, at a market cap of SEK 11.47bn. Com Hem raised SEK 5.7bn in the offering. SEK 2.5bn of new debt was arranged in October 2014 to refinance existing SEK 3.5bn senior secured notes due in 2018. A year later, Com Hem secured SEK 1.5bn of long- and short-term credit facilities with DNB, Danske Bank and Nordea to redeem outstanding euro notes of €187m.

BC Partners sold a 7.8% stake in Com Hem in July 2016, raising SEK 1.09bn through the sale of 15 million shares, reducing its shareholding to 30.7%. In November of the same year, Com Hem completed a SEK 2.25bn refinancing of its SEK 2.5bn existing senior secured notes with a 5.25% coupon, due in 2019.

Com Hem's history of PE ownership stretches back more than a decade, beginning with EQT's SEK 2.15bn carve-out of the company from Nordic telecommunications group TeliaSonera in June 2003.

EQT exited in January 2006, as part of an estimated €1.49bn EV SBO led by a private equity consortium consisting of Carlyle Europe Partners II and Providence Equity Partners' fourth fund, with Ardian participating as an equity syndicate and Goldman Sachs providing mezzanine financing.

Company
Founded in 1983, Com Hem is a provider of cable TV, internet and telephone services.

The company had SEK 5.2bn of revenues and SEK 2.47bn of underlying EBITDA in 2016, according to its 31 January 2017 annual report.

Headquartered in Stockholm, Com Hem serves 1.5 million customers and employs a staff of 1,100, according to the company's website.

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• Topics
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• Partial sale